Palladian Guard Reboot

I mentioned in my last post that my Imperial Guard army was due for a reboot in the next few weeks. It's been a while since I covered anything 40K, so it's a good opportunity to give you an update on how things stand between me and my first love.

I've also included the sketches and notes I've been making on how I intend to bring the Pallaidan Guard up to date, renovate the fludd and make them into an interesting and dynamic 40K army with some real opportunities for interesting conversions.

The 'Old' Palladians

So, where did all this start? The whole blog was originally dedicated to my beloved Imperial Guard army of Mordian models, hence the name. The original concept was a Latin-Roman themed army, and my own particular force represented a company of elite Honour Guard troops - hence the full-dress uniforms.

By about 2012, I had a decent-sized army including tanks, infantry and special vehicles. We played occasional games using our own half-remembered rules - about two thirds 3rd Edition, one third house rules. (We had some great games back in the day, like this one and this one)

Then the army stagnated. It was pretty much finished, with 3,000pts of fully painted models, and I still played the odd game, but my attention was drawn to historical 2mm and 6mm, which still occupy almost all of my time. The culmination of the Palladian project was my background book; a complete hardback book with all my fluff inside.

Why did I decide to change it?

So, what's next? I decided to re-examine the fluff after reading Mary Beard's S.P.Q.R. For a layman like me, it's a clear and accessible overview of the city and the wider Roman empire. I really enjoyed it; but it made me realise that my Palladian fluff was only very superficially 'Roman' - specifically, the names were Latin, and that was about it. Everything else - the social structure, the military organisation, traditions... all that was 'conventional' military.

So, I basically imported Roman army organisation. I think a really important part of using real-world models to create fluff is to use the bad parts as well as the good, and that's what I've done with the Palladian reboot. There are so many WW2 German-themed armies where people cherry-pick the 'cool' parts and end up with a completely unrealistic army.

What's different about the New Guard then?

Only the fluff and the structure. The Palladians have a very unusual organisation. A legio (about the size of a brigade), is simply a group of sixty centuriae (equivalent to a company). These companies are simply grouped together into ad hoc formations of anything between one and sixty companies for whatever task they need to complete, rather than being organised into battalions and regiments.

There are few staff officers and intermediate ranks - just centurions (captain equivalents) and legion commanders (colonels). The centurions are defined by their seniority; the newest and most junior centurion will command the sixtieth centuria while the most senior commands the first, primus inter pares unit.

My efforts at designing a regimental organisation.

With rank equivalents for all the Roman Army positions...

Insignia...

And regimental honorific titles!

What about the models?
None of this affects the models themselves. The Mordian models represent full dress uniform, which remains unchanged in the fluff. I'm taking the opportunity to do some Victoria Lamb conversions - these are using the Arcadian Guard figures, so they represent the normal battle dress of the Palladian Guard. It's just a chance to build on the existing fluff and make some nice new models.

Hope you enjoyed that little look 'under the hood' at creating an army; there will be more to follow on this in the future.

Hummm. I'd be very interested in seeing how this manifests itself on Devos IV, I'd always assumed that the Legionary Regiments mentioned were 'x' battalions of infantry and that the supporting elements listed were additional :